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Colombian guerrilla leader narrowly escapes airstrike
Jul 4, 2011, 5:31 GMT
Bogota - Colombia's top guerrilla commander barely escaped an airstrike that targeted him in a mountainous south-eastern region of the country, President Juan Manuel Santos said Sunday.
Santos said troops entered a bombed-out rebel camp and found items belonging to Alfonso Cano, leader of Colombia's largest and oldest guerrilla front, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
'The army will continue to pursue him and sooner or later he will fall, just like the FARC leaders before him,' the president said.
Cano, whose given name is Guillermo Leon Saenz, rose to the top of the FARC ranks after the death in 2008 of Manuel Marulanda, who led the front since its founding in 1964.
The military has had a string of successes in hunting senior rebel commanders, including airstrikes that killed Raul Reyes in 2008 and Jorge Briceno last year. Soldiers also killed two successive chiefs of Cano's security earlier this year.
Santos said Cano has now been dislodged from his long-time headquarters in the dense mountains of Tolima in the central region.
'The army is breathing down his neck,' the president said.
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